Barrios Skills — John Barrios's curated workflow for economists and accountants. Prioritize reproducible empirical work, clear identification language, and journal-ready output.

OpenAlex API

Overview

Use this skill to turn research questions into reliable OpenAlex API queries and structured outputs. Prefer scripts/query_openalex.py for repeatable retrieval, pagination, and filter-safe URL construction.

Workflow

1. Define the target entity: works, authors, institutions, sources, concepts, topics, funders, or publishers.
2. Define retrieval scope: exact ID lookup, search, or filtered dataset pull.
3. Build query parameters with scripts/query_openalex.py instead of handcrafting URLs.
4. Retrieve data to JSON/JSONL and keep the raw export before downstream cleaning.
5. Validate key fields (IDs, dates, citation counts, authorships) before analysis.

Query Rules

• Use repeated --filter flags for AND logic.
• Use OpenAlex pipe syntax (for example value1|value2) inside one filter for OR logic.
• Use --select to reduce payload size for large pulls.
• Use --cursor '*' for deep paging beyond basic page limits.
• Include --mailto you@domain.edu for polite-pool style identification.
• Use OPENALEX_API_KEY or --api-key when available for higher-rate access.

Common Commands

# Fetch one work by OpenAlex ID
python3 scripts/query_openalex.py works --entity-id W2741809807 --select "id,display_name,publication_year,cited_by_count"

# Search works and save first 200 records
python3 scripts/query_openalex.py works \
  --search "political polarization" \
  --filter "from_publication_date:2020-01-01" \
  --sort "cited_by_count:desc" \
  --per-page 100 \
  --pages 2 \
  --output polarization_works.json

# Cursor-paginate author records to JSONL
python3 scripts/query_openalex.py authors \
  --filter "last_known_institutions.country_code:US" \
  --cursor "*" \
  --max-results 500 \
  --format jsonl \
  --output us_authors.jsonl

Output Guidance

• Prefer JSON for full response bundles and JSONL for row-wise pipelines.
• Keep original IDs (id, ids.openalex, DOI fields) unchanged in exports.
• When reporting findings, cite exact query parameters used to ensure reproducibility.

Resources

• Use scripts/query_openalex.py for all API calls.
• Use references/openalex-query-patterns.md for entity routing, filter templates, and reusable query patterns.